Electrical contacts are sometimes gold plated … this reduces corrosion so the contacts last longer … but not a lot of gold is used, just a thin layer … and typically this is recovered by smelting the electronics …
I agree with Darren Garrison. I just browsed for close up pictures of gold from panning, and it sure looks like the OP’s closeup pictures. That, and the fact that a hammer flattens pieces without shattering them, and a knife cuts also without shattering, sounds like very strong evidence it’s natural gold.
We’re not talking the Hope Diamond, here. How much of the stuff is there? Is the peanut butter jar full, and fairly difficult to lift even using both hands? Congratulations if so! But if there’s a teaspoonful, then it’s worth visiting the goldmonger but your life’s not going to change.
About the vinegar and copper thing- we used to make “gold” pennies in some of the classes I taught. Basically, it was dipping clean pennies in a zinc and lye solution, then heating them. The zinc dissolved into the copper and made brass. Anyway, we used white vinegar to clean the cents before processing them. It did a fine job, but never turned the coins green!
yearofglad, I have an SEM with EDS capability in my lab. Will be glad to analyze it for you. I just sent you a PM.
The peanut butter jar is an old one, like the ones seen here.
It’s about 1/4 full.
(One of the pictures from my original post shows the entire pile next to a AA battery.)
There’s definitely more than a teaspoonful. If I had to guess, the jar has a diameter of ~2.5 inches, the gold is about 3/4 of an inch deep. (I’m not longer at my dad’s house, but have traveled back home, so I don’t have access to it.
If it’s gold, the amount is mostly immaterial (no pun intended) - my dad will almost certainly sell it to help pay for some medical expenses for my grandmother (it’s her property). Every little bit helps.
Either me or Samclem will post back with the analysis (I sent him samples).
Thanks everyone - I’ve enjoyed all the input and the helpfulness, and am looking forward to getting the analysis. Unfortunately, there will never be any way, I suspect, of finding out WHERE my grandfather got the metal - my grandmother isn’t in any condition to say and my grandfather has long since passed. So that’ll be a mystery that a lab test can’t answer.
Your grandfather wasn’t secretly a Nobel prize winner and hiding from the Nazis, was he?
Ahh, no. In that case you would have found a Skippy jar filled with gold dissolved in aqua regia.
Try this (all figures rounded): actual diameter is 1.4 cm, so area of a cross section is pi * .7 (radius) squared, = 1.54 sq cm. Actual length is 5 cm, so volume is 1.54 * 5 = 7.7 cubic cm. At 19.3 grams/cubic cm, that’s 148.68 grams. At 28.35 grams per ounce that’s 5.24 ounces avoirdupois. At 16 ounces per pound, that’s about a third of a pound.
Or for Troy weights, at 31 grams per ounce it would be about 4.8 Troy ounces.
(Not sure, but aside from the size of the battery being wrong, perhaps you went wrong in your formula for area of a circle. It looks like you used diameter squared instead of radius squared (possibly, working back from your number and using your dimensions).)
If it is gold and reasonably pure, and if OP’s guess as to the volume is correct, that would come to over 60 cubic cm, and over 37 Troy ounces (this is probably high, since the volume of metal isn’t solid). Spot price today is $1241/Troy ounce. Good luck.
Just thinking of tax implications, if this amount doesn’t push OP’s grandfather’s estate into inheritance tax land, then his Dad may need to find a way to confirm for the IRS that this was part of the estate, so that it doesn’t get taxed like income. If he takes it to a gold buyer, he’s going to get a check, and that large an amount may catch up with him in an audit someday.
It’s value IMHO, is it’s history… It was your grand dads… I know that does not always matter to some, and sometimes something they would rather forget. But if it was mine, I would consider taking at least some to a jeweler, and have a ring fashioned out of it. IF it is gold, it looks like there is enough for that. Or put a gold bead with a little of it set on a ring that could be purchased.
[bangs head on desk] … I gave circumference x length = volume … (new prescription and I’m still adjusting the dosage) …
I don’t disagree, but there are bills to be paid, unfortunately. I’ve always felt an affinity with my grandfather and may propose it to my dad, but it really probably should be used to take care of my grandmother’s expenses. But I hadn’t thought about it, so I appreciate the suggestion and may act on it.
UPDATE.
Brass.
53.40% copper
46.60% zinc
The granules were pretty damn small. With a 10X loupe, they looked at first like panned gold flakes but not quite. Too craggy and irregular.
Checked it on the analyzer this morning. Sorry grandma. 
D’oh! I haven’t been this disappointed since the grid ball turned out to be art.
Just as you predicted, sam. You da metal man.
Yeah, I was pretty sure they were smaller than you thought when you asked if they were smaller than a pea.
Disappointing, indeed, but mystery solved. (Well, the mystery of the metal; the mystery of why my grandfather was saving them is still present - maybe he thought they were gold, who knows?)
Thanks for all the opinions and for the testing.
Yeah, bummer.
Hey, I just think it’s cool we could get a definitive answer with the resources of the people on this board.
As for saving them - maybe he thought they looked interesting? Maybe he was planning to get rid of them and simply forgot?
Around here some people save all sorts of scraps of metal and turn them in for money and recycling, maybe that?
#1) I agree - the resources around here are amazing. It’s the only message board I bother with.
#2) They LOOK like gold - maybe he thought they were gold or would have some use there - I can’t imagine he forgot to get rid of them; he was pretty orderly and meticulous, from what I remember.
#3) The spot price for brass is about $1.70/pound. I’d wager there’s about 2 ounces, if that. So I hope he wasn’t planning on retiring on his proceeds.
Have you found the dozens of 55 gallon drums of the stuff buried in the back yard yet?
That might be for a better grade of brass … I’m coming up with $1.39/lb for yellow brass … but that’s only 33% zinc …
So unless zinc is more valuable than copper … your brass might be worth even less … although I’m not sure the scrap yards have lower grades than yellow …
Was your grandfather a handyman? Could it be that he was saving the brass so that he could try doing some casting work?
Maybe he had a friend that casts brass. I save any brass scrap that I get for a friend that is a brass/bronze sculptor.